The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: A secular society is a tolerant society

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

First the banning of headscarves in France's public schools. Then prohibitions against full face coverings and religious worship in public spaces, and most recently legislation that targets Islamic fundamentalism. And in Quebec, a former colony of France, the outlawing of religious symbols in government workplaces, including schools. These are some of the strong measures that France and Quebec have taken to enforce the separation of church and state that is characteristic of Western democracies. Proponents of secularism, or laïcité as it is called in France, say that secularism promotes healthy democracies by ensuring that competing religious loyalties do not undermine the full equality and free speech necessary to be good citizens. Furthermore, secularism protects religions by providing a framework where believers and non-believers alike can privately and peacefully co-habitate. What secularism cannot tolerate is politicized religion, which secularists say we are witnessing with the rise of Islamism. They argue that this politicized form of Islam threatens democratic ideals in exactly the same way that the Catholic church undermined the French Republic at the beginning of the last century, and must be opposed just as aggressively. The lengths to which France and Quebec are willing to go to promote their vision of a secular society has provoked an international outcry. Critics argue that modern day secularism is not a neutral policy, but a form of disguised colonialism that targets religious and racialized communities, in particular followers of Islam. They argue that the activist secularist policies we are witnessing right now are based on simplistic ideas about the Muslim faith, such as the assumption that oppression of women is an essential feature of Islam, and that Muslim communities do not adapt or integrate when they join new communities. Prohibiting religious expression is undemocratic and illiberal, a denial of fundamental rights that enrich societies. Rather than supporting peaceful and productive democracies, secularism is another form of fundamentalism that sows the seeds for extremism and terrorism. Arguing for the motion is Caroline Fourest, a journalist, film maker, and expert on French secularism. She is the author of many best-selling books in France, including The Genius of Secularism. Arguing against the motion is John Bowen, who is Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology, at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the author of numerous books about Islam including Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Sources: AFP News Agency, France 24, CBC, Al Jazeera, TVO, Euronews, Wall Street Journal The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ The Munk Debates podcast is produced by Antica, Canada's largest private audio production company - https://www.anticaproductions.com/   Executive Producer: Stuart Coxe, CEO Antica Productions Senior Producer: Christina Campbell Editor: Kieran Lynch Associate Producer: Abhi Raheja Research: Charlotte FayBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved. A secular society is a tolerant society. When France banned religious signs from its public schools in 2004, it effectively put an end to students wearing the Islamic veil. The bill is aimed at clamping down on radical Islam and strengthening French second. It was spearheaded by Emmanuel Macron back in October after a French teacher was beheaded for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Last majority of Quebecers, they want that the religious signs be forbidden for certain groups of employees, and that's what I'm doing.

Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. While you've just heard a small taste of some of the controversial measures that France and Quebec have taken to enforce the separation of church and state that they believe is a key characteristic of Western democracy. Proponents of this kind of aggressive muscular secularism, or licy te, as it's called in France, say that it promotes healthy democracies by ensuring that competing religious loyalties do not undermine the full equality and free speech rights of all citizens. They also argue that secularism protects religions by providing a framework where believers and non-believers alike can privately and peacefully cohabitably. What democracies supposedly cannot tolerate is politicized religion,

which secular's charge we are witnessing within Islamic faith communities. Here is President Emmanuel Macron in translation. What we must fight is Islam is separatism. It's a conscious theoretical, sociopolitical project. It's repeatedly at odds with the values of the Republic and often leads to the creation of a counter-society. The lengths to which France and Quebec have gone to promote their vision of state-en-forced secularism is provoking an international outcry. Critics argue that modern-day secularism is not a neutral policy, but a form of disguised colonialism that targets religious and racialized communities,

in particular followers of Islam, prohibiting religious expression as undemocratic and illiberal, a denial of fundamental rights that enrich every society. Rather than supporting peaceful and productive democracies, secularism is another form of fundamentalism that is responsible for sowing the seeds of extremism and violence in society. A French Muslim woman, I am exhausted and angry to see once again the policing of my beliefs, my choices, and my body. As a French citizen, I am stripped of my most basic human rights. So we act together, calling for solidarity, to put an end to this implicit sexism and anti-Muslim hatred before it's too late.

On this installment, the monk debates, we challenge the essence of these arguments by debating the motion, be it resolved, a secular society is a tolerant society. Arguing for the motion is Carolyn Fouquet, a journalist, filmmaker, an expert on French secularism. She's the author of many best-selling books in France, including The Genius of Secularism. Arguing against the motion is John Bowden. He's a professor of sociocultural anthropology at the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He's also the author of his own best-selling books, including Why the French Don't Like Headscarves, Islam, the State and Public Space. Caroline, John, welcome to the Monk Debates. Thank you.

Thank you. Real pleasure to have both of you on the program today. Our resolution is an important one, really, for all societies. As we kind of enter into these early decades of the 21st century, how do we create, especially here in the Western world, resilient, strong democracies that can balance the needs of individuals for self-expression, for recognition, with the needs of community, for institutions and states that represent broader interests and concerns. So an opportunity with our motion, be it resolved, a secular society is a tolerant society to really go to the root of these debates,

the root of this conversation. So Carolyn, you're speaking in favor of the motion. A secular society is a tolerant society. So I'm going to put two minutes on our proverbial debate clock and turn the program over to you. Yes. And thank you again for having me. Look, intolerance exists in all societies of the world. The fundamental question for us today is whether a secular democracy promotes tolerance or not. What is certain is that non-secular countries are very intolerant. In Pakistan, for example, a law against blasphemy can sentence to jail any Hindu, Christian, or a madi, a religious minority,

who dares to express their faith in public, or any view that disturbs the political or political or. based on Sunni Islam. But let's compare more familiar countries like France and the United States. Both are democracies, but they don't have the same degree of secularism because of their history and their philosophy. The French Republic had to defeat the monarchy and the Catholic Church to obtain freedom and equality.

The United States was funded by Europeans who fled religious persecution and see equality as the fruit of the world. religious tolerance. Because of these religious roots, the wall of separation dreamed of by Thomas Jefferson cracks sometimes. This is the case when the courts of some states accept that religious companies discriminate against gay employees. This is very shocking from a French point of view. On the opposite side, many Americans, many Anglo-Saxon media outlets will argue that France is intolerant because of legislation taken to fight against cults or religious extremism. I frequently read crazy lies and misinformation about French secularism,

so allow me to correct just some of them. First, there is no Muslim ban in France. The veil is permitted, except in public schools where all religious signs are forbidden to protect neutrality and equality. Mosques are free and protected. Actually, their number isn't crazy fast and has almost doubled since 2001. The problem is that this religious wave comes with a search of intolerance. Studies indicate that the young French Muslims are more anti-semitic, more homophobic, more sexist

than their elders were. Since the Gulf War, Islamic fundamentalist groups have taken advantage of the frustration of the children of immigration to radicalize them. And the result is terrible. I live in a country hit by deadly attacks almost every two months. Jihadists gunned down Jewish children at the door of their school. They murdered cartoonists and journalists, my dear friend from Charlie Hebdo. They massacred the young people who came to listen music.

They beheaded a teacher who was trying to explain tolerance to cartoons. They slide the throat of a woman praying in church, at church. For sure, these fanatics are not tolerant. Of course, they have nothing to do with the peaceful majority of the Muslims, targeted themselves by these fanatics. French secular society knows that and makes that distinction. It respects its citizen of Muslim faiths. What it combats is political fundamentalism, not by intolerance.

but to protect tolerance. Thank you, Carolyn. For that opening statement, we're now going to go to John, who's arguing against our motion today. A secular society is a tolerant society. John, the same opportunity for you, two minutes on the clock.

Let's have your opening remarks. I'd like to make two or three points, fairly succinctly, I hope. The first one is that the general proposition we're debating is, on its face, is the universal proposition. If a society is secular, then it is tolerant, or it's more likely to be tolerant. I think as a general proposition, it's false.

There are many societies that are clearly secular in that they separate or even discriminate against the public expression of religion or even the private expression, and they're hardly tolerant. I would think China would be a very good example. It's secular, but hardly tolerant, and it's especially repressive of minority religious currents. So it isn't a motion for or against France. It's a motion that claims a universal relationship between secularism and tolerance. So what we care about here, and I think Carolyn and I agree, what we really care about is what

are the arrangements in societies that are most likely to give rise to respect as well as tolerance across different groups, religious groups, ethnic groups, and other groups. But especially in this case, the question of religious groups. And as Carolyn so rightly pointed out, each society has its own set of arrangements. which draw from their history, their particular experience. History is always there with us. And in the United States, as she says, U.S. religious symbols are more likely to be found in public. The fight there was really for rights of religious expression, religious diversity, and religious freedom. We don't have an established church. But there's no sense in which secularism, as understood here in the United States, cannot be consistent with public expression of religious symbols.

So this is what we might call a secularism of neutrality of the state, that the state doesn't side for one religion against another, but seeks to protect the rights of religious groups. France, of course, has a different history. We have an important guarantee of freedom of expression. No one will be harassed for their opinions, even religious ones. And we all are grateful to the legacy of France for that reason. But also a historic report of force between the church and the state. What's often misunderstood as separation of church and state in France, in fact, is a political system which includes intense involvement by the state in a number of organizations that are related to religions.

For example, France massively subsidized religious organizations, maintaining some buildings, paying religious schools expenses in exchange for teaching the national curriculum. And the state has, indeed, in the Ministry of the Interior, an office of religions. I see this is very understandable, given France's history. history of top-down governance and conflicts between the state and church, but not necessarily exportable. So my argument is against the general proposition, but also for the idea that there are many routes to tolerance, and they pass by different notions of secularism. And if we think of the United States as an example of the neutrality of the state, France then is an example of a

different interpretation of secularism, that is no religion in the public sphere. And it's not clear to me that keeping religion out of the public sphere is the best way to build tolerance among members of the society. In fact, I think there's fair evidence that this is probably not the case. So I'm against the proposition, and I'm for distinguishing among different sorts of arrangements that we call secularism. Thank you, John, and thank you, Carolyn, for those excellent opening statements. We're now going to move to rebuttal, so this is the opportunity for both of you to react to what you've just heard. So again, another couple minutes on the clock, Carolyn, over to you first. to react to John's opening statement that you've heard just now.

No, I totally understand what John just said about the fact that being a secular country do not mean automatically that you are tolerant and you need to be a secular democracy, which is not the case, for example, of China. It's still an authoritarian regime. There are a secular authoritarian regime, and that changed everything. because as they are oppressing many liberties, freedom of religion is part of them. We have to connect the fact that a country is secularist and that a state is democratic to probably have the maximum of what we can consider as tolerant. We had also many regimes.

I'm thinking about Arab regime who claimed to be secularist and itself and was not secularist. They were instrumentalizing a sort of state religion, in the case of Egypt, for example, Islam. And they were definitely controlling the mosque in order to promote their national and sometimes their nationalist curriculum. It's clearly clear that the government, the state is not supposed to recognize officially the religion and to promote one religion, of course, above another. There is relationship between state and the religion, but religion is absolutely not supposed to influence or to be the source of the common law. And this is where the separation is so, so important. And honestly, as a free thinker, as also lesbian feminist, I feel so blessed, so blessed to live in a secular democracy. because I feel respected not only as a minority,

but also I feel respected in my right to express myself, including in my right to criticize some dogmas, some ideology that can be considered as sacred, for example, in the USA, where just by example, not a single newspaper published the cartoons about Mohammed during the cartoon's crisis affair, because freedom of speech is less part of what it considered to be protected than freedom of religion. Thank you, Carolyn.

John, your opportunity now for a rebuttal. You can react to Carolyn's opening statement or her comments just now. It is true that French schools, that religious schools that agree to teach the national curriculum do receive subsidies from the state. This is different from the issue of church buildings. And they do so, I'm well aware. in support of their mission to educate pupils. It's not qua religious institution. But it does mean that if we talk about separation of everything governmental from everything religious in France, that's a bit of an overstatement. There are a number of ways in which the state is entangled

in religious organizations through the Ministry of the Interior, through in education, and in other ways as well. I'm not opposed to this. I think it's perfectly reasonable. But I think we have to move from slogans, separation of church and state that don't really tell us. very much to the particular configurations we find in each country. And I think it's proper that there are these differences across countries because each country has to work within the limits of its own history and the values as well of its own history. Now, I think we would agree that the goal here is to think about how we best promote respect and freedom in any country. And I think there's a real debate even in France here between what's often called more

open forms of laicite and more closed forms of laicite. Just yesterday, in Le Monde, for example, there was an article that was based on interviews with high school and middle school children about laicite and about tolerance. They, the pupils, think that respectful expression of convictions, including religious convictions, constitute not a menace, but an opportunity for living together. So that's just one opinion, but it's another way of thinking about secularity, Lacey in France that ought to be considered. Thank you, John. Let me join the conversation now and try to think through some of the issues that are top of mind for our listeners.

And to come to you first, Carolyn, with the second part of our resolution, which is, you know, a secular society is a tolerant society. I want to just focus on that word tolerant because I think many people listening to this debate today would say, why isn't it tolerant to allow people, as John just said, to express their particularity, their individualism? And that individualism for many people, in many societies and traditions around the world, has a religious dimension. It may not be the sum, the total of their identity, but it is a cornerstone, a rootedness that puts them somewhere in the world. It provides them with a place to stand and talk and think from. So I want to hear a bit more for you, Carolyn, about how a secular society, in particular in France, where that definition of secularism is more expansive,

is in fact tolerant. Give us that argument. It's a critical one. Yes, please, with pleasure. And especially because in the way you're asking me about this, I feel it's presuming that it's impossible in France to express your singularity, your religious singularity in public, which makes love any French citizen that lives in this country because everybody is absolutely free to express your religious views, your religious symbols in the streets, in everywhere, except public schools, except public schools. There is this tradition of saying, look, you will become exactly where you want. You will wear exactly. which religious symbol you want when you will be an adult.

But if you want to go to the public school, you have to make this effort to not be determined, not be assigned by the religion of your parents, and just try to open your mind to a common perspective, and then after you would choose. That's part of the process of education. And if you prefer to wear a religious sign that says that women should hide there,

to not provoke men, you are absolutely right to go to a private school. This is our balance between individual liberty and building a citizenship. I understand it can be strange, again, from an American perspective. I would definitely not recommend that for a country like the United States, but in France it creates debates, as John said. I will not say that secularism is closed and close-minded. This is definitely a propaganda. promoted by the people who want to renegotiate secularism

in order to obtain more tolerance to the fundamentalist approach, to the intolerant. And we just try to be balanced, Democrats, again, respecting equality, pluralism, individual liberties, but not to be fooled by some propagandist and fundamentalist demands that are in our context, not in other country, not in many other countries, but in our context, try to promote sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, in the name of respect my religion. Hi, Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator.

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So, John, let me come back to you with a different slice at this. You use the phraseology, you know, state neutrality, which many people kind of understand. And Carolyn, I think, is right. This is more of a kind of Anglo-Saxon kind of concept. But the world of the 21st century is a world, unfortunately, of increasing polarization. It's a world of seemingly increasingly increasingly sharper social and religious identities. So why isn't it right in the name of tolerance? in the name of creating a society that is hopefully more peaceful, more civil in both senses of the word,

why not have a more muscular secularism that creates within, let's say, schools, but also we can look at here the example of Quebec, which has extended the concept of secularism, not only to teachers, but to other parts of the state and employees of the state. why isn't that, in fact, a guarantee for the moment that we live in now of a more tolerant society, to have these real zones of true neutrality built into some of our most public institutions? I would say the jury is out on what the best arrangements are across many countries for building tolerance. I think there's certainly a case to be made that one way to build tolerance in civil society, if people feel relaxed in their identities and they feel that they're,

free to express them in a wide range of public forums, that they're going to be more at ease about interacting with other people. And this is indeed an argument that's made by a number of French sociologists of religion as well. I would point out that there is this other stream of thinking about Laisite, which many call open Laisite in France, but it isn't just people who are dupes of Islamic fundamentalists who are promoting this. But I'd like to widen the debate out a bit. It shouldn't just be about the U.S. versus France. It's about a secular society is a tolerant society. There are other arrangements that are suitable for other countries in the world,

which seem to at least sometimes, at least provisionally, have relatively positive results. For example, if we took Indonesia, if I may, I've worked for many years there, and the state ideology, the Panchasila, guarantees religious freedom. And indeed, many streams of Christianity have excellent schools and universities often attended by Muslim students.

There are parallel states. secular courts and state Islamic courts and Islamic school systems, women have held all major offices and are near parity on courts now in Indonesia. The world's most populous Muslim majority country has long been a bastion of moderate Islam. It has a robust democracy, an open economy, and a constitution that protects the rights of Christians and other minorities. Not everything's right in Indonesia. There is a fundamentalist-Islamist component. there, which has grown in recent years. But nobody calls Indonesia a secular country.

But what people often call it is a tolerant society because of the nature of everyday life and the respect that people are able to have for themselves across these religious divides in everyday life. Imperfect, but another option, another way to develop tolerance, which is not itself secular. Thanks, John. So, Carolyn, I want to come back to you on one of the points John just raised and you've tagged it earlier in the debate, which is the fact that France is suffering terrorist attacks, you know, on average every eight to 12 weeks. So some would say that those attacks are in a sense a representation of some kind of societal failure somewhere. And why not see them? Why not acknowledge that part of the reason for those attacks might be, just might be, a general

or more of a lack of tolerance towards a specific community in French society. And that that lack of tolerance was expressed most essentially through your official state policies of secularism. They've created this problem. Well, yeah, this is something I hear very often. I must say this is the most painful and to my point of view unfair statement. I hear often because for me it sounds like victim blaming. It says, well, you've been eaten more by terrorist attacks, so you must have something to do with it.

So you are thinking, you implying, not you, sorry, it's really something very common. I can read in the New York Times, in the Washington Post all the time, that it implies that French secularism somehow provoke jihadism and should be more quiet about French values, freedom of speech, a woman's right, minority's right, maybe gayer's right, to please the jihadists, so they won't attack France. Let me just remind you something. Terrorist attacks have been occurred all over the planet. The other country where has been the more hit by terrorist attack is

Algeria. It's Egypt. It's Muslim countries. And from what I know, Muslims are not at all under secularism pressure there. So it has nothing to do. It takes time to explain why we have maybe slightly more terrorist attacks. First, because we have the largest Muslim population in Europe, because we have also many fundamentalist groups that are really working hard since the Gulf War again to radicalize the use, using, of course, frustration. Of course, there is sometimes intolerance, racism against Muslims in France. Actually, if you study and if you compare through the pure research studies, it's not much than in the UK than other European countries.

But here we have groups who can really, really use it to radicalize people. But except that, honestly, there is absolutely no justification. The young Jewish kids that have been killed in front of their school have been killed in the name of Palestine. The other have been killed because they were Christian. So the jihadists will always find a good reason to kill. And as long as the democracy, the journalists, will find them excuses. We'll explain that again, this is the fault of the victim. They will go on because that will work. That means that their propaganda can work to convince and radicalize other Muslims, French or European citizen to grow. It's part of their strategy when you study them. So my position, and to go back to

what John said, my position is that in this context, at the contrary, we cannot play that game. We have to defend the values of equality of secularism, the right to believe in God or not believe in God. Right now in France, we have a young lesbian. She's under a lot of this threat. That's right. This girl's name is Mila. She is 16 years old. Last month, she posted on her Instagram calling Islam a religion of hate. Now, this was after she says she received homophobic abuse from a Muslim commenter. She then started receiving death threats. The case has rekindled France's debate over blasphemy.

Insulting religion or blasphemy is not a crime in France, but the question here in this case sort of is, where is that line? And we have to protect her because she is the victim there. And John is right. It's not only an American-French debate. It's a more universal one. But there is people in France like Jean-Beou who want to import the Canadian approach with the religious arrangements.

I disagree with that because I think actually importing those religious arrangements exception to the common law, let's see, because this is the case. There's always been this debate in Quebec about the accommodation of minorities who have certain kinds of restrictions put upon themselves because of religion or other issues.

The whole debate about having a kerpan in schools, for example, which went to the Supreme Court, was about this idea that you could, perhaps there was some way of reasonably accommodating these kinds of religious practices. This is not equality anymore. This is when you are a religious person, you can ask to have a special treatment

that a non-religious citizen would not have. And if there is, for example, and it happened in Canada. If you have example, an Orthodox Jew, we don't want to see a woman doing sport on the way of his yeshiva. He will ask to block the glasses to not see women doing sport.

For me, this is sexism. You can call it religious tolerance. For me, this is sexism. And again, the tolerance is used to fight, to combat equality. And in France, we prefer to preserve equality, freedom of speech, because it's equality and freedom of speech

for our opinion or the majority of the opinion that first contain fundamentalism propaganda, not the terrorist attack, you're right, but fundamentalist propaganda that kills liberties and equality. And second, because, and this is really something I believe in, this is also a way to avoid too much polarization because if we do not resist this way, the secularist way, then the anger against the terrorist attacks

and then against Islam and the Muslims will grow. And the extreme rights will definitely use it to win the election, to take power, and then then to practice a state intolerant policy. And this is also to avoid that, that we try to preserve the secularist resistance, more balance, to not be tolerant again with the intolerant and the fundamentalist, but to respect definitely freedom of religion. Thank you, Carolyn.

So, John, what's your reflection? on what you've just heard this, a forceful argument here that secularism practiced as it is in France that this more kind of muscular variety prevents polarization. It prevents what is the greatest threat to tolerance.

I'm not sure what the evidence is and the speculation about the electoral consequences of taking this or that position is a bit difficult to be very sure about. I'm completely in agreement with Carolyn about not doing victim blaming. I think this is obscene. And there was an undue amount of it right after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. And I was very unhappy with that. But I think we can look

with a little bit of distance, perhaps, at how things tend to be settled in different countries and ask ourselves, is it always the case that historically, France is, in recent history, that France's way of responding or the sorts of institutions and attitudes that we find more often in France, to these fundamentalist attacks or terrorist attacks better, works out better than, say, in Great Britain or in Germany or in other countries in Europe, just to stick within Europe. And I'm not sure this is true. I've spent a fair amount of time in the United Kingdom

in Great Britain. And it does seem to me that there's a denser, more broadly based network of civil society organizations in Britain that can often work to squelch these more violent and undesirable tendencies. Birmingham, United Kingdom, its communities like this, where the government has focused its counter-terrorism efforts in recent years. Part of this strategy is to prevent program.

Prevent seeks to put an end to radicalization and extremism by engaging the Muslim community. I think things are a bit more brittle in France. It's hard to quantify this or to prove this, but there's just fewer places you can go to sort of work things out than there are in the United Kingdom. Part of this, I think, has to do not with anything about secularism per se, but with the relation between the state and religious organizations, that there is this historical tendency in France

to try to build up institutions that govern religions, but at the same time keep religions out of the public sphere. And it's something of a contradiction. So it's not that I'm planning that there is a strong association between politics in one country and how much terrorism there is, but I think there's a case to be made that there are other ways of diffusing tensions in societies, even just looking within in Europe. And it might be that on this particular issue, the United Kingdom has had a bit more success than has France. For years, London has been the place where the most radical Islamists were free to grow and attack the other countries. Actually, many of the Islamist propaganda that hit us in France has been established.

from the safe place of UK where they have been tolerated by the authorities. And in return, you're right. They didn't strike first the UK. And for a long time, the police there was absolutely sure this strategy will protect the United Kingdom. At the end, it didn't work. But finally, they have been hit like everyone. And the London attacks have been also deadly. So they changed their strategy.

but I'm working on Islamism for now almost 15 years and I'm working on their strategy and I think we should recognize that they have been very smart to use any of our weakness in every countries and they are using tolerance a lot again to return it against tolerance. But I would never argue that there is one solution to be safe from a terrorist attack that can be implemented everywhere, not at all.

We are facing different groups, different contexts, and at least we should recognize that and accept that the Canada situation is not the UK situation, is not the French one, is not the American one. Just for example, in the United States, 90% of the terrorist attacks and eight crimes are coming from white supremacists. I totally understand that there, the most important thing is absolutely not to reinforce secularism. In France, it's the contrary. 90% of the attacks are coming from Islamist extremists.

And there, we need to tackle the ideology behind. Because we tackle it, sometimes, yes, we are attacked more. But we also believe that safety is not everything, that defending values, defending equality again, defending freedom of speech, including the right to criticize religion, is part of Harry's story. This is where all our liberties come from. So we are ready to endure some very hard time to say who we are. Maybe it's difficult to understand, but this is how most of the French feel. So before we go to closing statements, I just want to touch on probably the big issue of the last decade or more that kind of brought this debate to global attention. And it was the publication and Charlie Hebdo and elsewhere of cartoons of the

prophet Muhammad. And I think, John, I want to get your view on that, on that event, you know, the tragedy that unfolded as a result, because it kind of, to me, it really is at the root of our motion today. A secular society is a tolerant society. So was it tolerant to publish those cartoons, but then not to have published them, what is your society at that point? I mean, maybe some people would characterize it as respect. Others might, Carolyn, might say, would characterize it out of a sense of fear. You know, you were very much part of that discussion and debate. I'd like your take on it, John.

Well, I wasn't really part of the debate about what the school teacher who was killed should have done. I think it's very complicated because on the one hand, one doesn't want ever to say that it was somehow his fault. And it's so difficult to avoid saying something like that or sounding like that. I think the better question would be what sort of judgment should one exercise and not necessarily to focus on him, but how should one deal with these highly fought over conflicting views and passions in anyone's society? And France has a different way of thinking about that than do some other countries. I also just remind us that the overwhelming number of

of Muslims, Muslim organization, Muslim leaders demonstrated publicly against the beheading. And so it's important to remember this. And then the question becomes, how can we best? And this becomes then a strategic question, not a question of values per se. We can all agree on the values of free speech, also of holding religious views. The question becomes, what ends up having the most positive effects for society in the particular kinds of arrangements we have the particular pedagogical choices that are made. And pedagogy is not the same as defending values. Pedagogy is a craft changed for different ages.

And so these are very difficult questions. That's not really the one that I want to focus on because it's so – I mean, of course, we're all against this. We're all against terrorism. We're all against violence. And the questions become what sorts of arrangements within different societies seem to work the best in terms of building up what French people call it Diverre Ensemble. It's more than tolerance. It's an active process and way of living your life where you live together with people who are unlike you. And here, Carol and I clearly agree that each country has its own history. And then the question becomes how within the

parameters of that history, we still have choices. We still have choices. The law prohibiting headscarves in public schools was passed relatively recently. It's not been a part of the whole tradition of French secularism. So I think we can look at these choices separately, very, very specific choices, separately from the general question of what are the basic values of France or the United States or Indonesia or another country, and how can we make sure that we don't contradict those values? So Carolyn, to follow up on that, you know, this we're certain about the 21st century. This is going to be 100 years of the migration and movements of populations around the world. And, you know, states and governments may develop various policies, but

reality probably is going to become that our societies are all going to become a lot more diverse, ethnically, religiously, you name it. So how is this idea of a kind of more muscular secular secularism? How is this in tune with the 21st century and the bigger trends that all of our societies need to grapple with? Why doesn't it make more sense as a society to say, you know what, let's make some compromises. Let's be pluralistic, not secularist, because the demography is destiny. Joseph de Mastra, your great French thinker,

coined that term, and it's such a powerful one. You know, you're fighting on an ideology and a historiography of 50 years ago, not the century ahead. Let me say that I was part of the Cartoon's Affair because I was journalist in Charlie Hebdo, when we took that decision and John is right, it was a choice.

Charlie Hebdo has been publishing satire since its creation in 1969. In February 2006, it reprinted Danish Daily Ilans Posterns' unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which had sparked a storm of threatening protests throughout the Muslim world.

And it was a very difficult choice to make. Believe me on that. And we didn't jump on it like, yes, we are going to publish cartoons about Mohammed. No, no, no, we think a lot about it. And we had nightmare. And we knew that probably one of us would be killed for that.

We didn't imagine so many, but we were really, really conscious that it could happen. And actually, what is so difficult to explain, it was not a provocation. It was not to irritate or offence anyone. it was absolutely necessary to defend pluralism of ideas. There is not only the pluralism of religion. Pluralism of ideology does exist too. And when we are journalists, when you learn that there is crazy, crazy crowds burning flags of Denmark

because there a newspaper published some cartoons representing Mohammed to defend freedom of speech, to break censorship. Because again, you have to know the history there. Because the context explains everything and all the choices that have been made. And if you don't know the context, you cannot judge it. At the beginning of this story, there is a publisher who wanted to illustrate the life of Mohammed, to promote Mohammed positively, to respect pluralism and diversity. Not a single cartoonist accepted to.

do the cartoons by fear of being killed like Theo Van Gogh in Netherlands by an Islamist. So a Danish newspaper decided to do this contest, not to mock Muhammad, to illustrate Muhammad to break the fear. Then they have been under their threat. And in Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Charlie Abdul represents a very specific satirical tradition that is always very, very, very free to denounce all type of oppression or domination. It is a very anti-racist newspaper. They are mocking military, they are mocking the cops, and they are also mocking religion. And the Pope most of the time. And in this case, it was impossible to do a cover about the Pope.

I mean, the destriots were made in the name of Allah. So we had to do something about Mohammed to explain why the crisis started just to inform, not to provoke, just to tell the story to the people who are reading us. And we did a cover very, very sweet, a cover we will never do about Catholic Church, with a Mohammed completely desperate because of the Islamist attitude and violence, saying it's so hard to be loved by morons. And it was a sweet cover, an anti-racist cover, that separate Mohammed from the fundamentalist to respect Muslims. Regardless that, regardless everything I just told you, that has not been told by many journalists in the world, unfortunately.

There was crazy crowd in Pakistan who wanted to burn France and Charlie Hebdo. There was their threat coming from Al-Qaeda against my colleagues. And at the end, they have been killed. Terrorists have opened fire in the Charlie Hebdo newsroom in Paris, killing 12 people and wounding many others. They said that several staff were in the midst of an editorial meeting before being shot. But this question don't think it's a French question or it is a provocation or it is again a question of religious pluralism, not at all. The cartoons affair reveal the fact that we are living in the global world

where the values or the thinking or your opinion doesn't matter, you cannot express it anymore because if there is someone more violent, ready to kill, anywhere in the planet, then you cannot express yourself because you will be in danger. If the journalists are not doing their job, if they are not explaining the context, the fact that it is a satirical French newspaper defending a Danish one, if it is presented as an Islamophobic provocation, of course,

it helps the killer. It helps the propaganda of the killers. And this is why it's so important that we are having debate, are putting context in everything we are expressing, but we cannot stop to think and express ourselves because there is intolerant people somewhere in the world that have internet. It's impossible.

We need to continue to speak because it is like breathing. It's part of freedom. It's part of pluralism precisely. Thank you, Carolyn. Let's go to closing statements. We have been debating the motion today, be it resolved. A secular society is a tolerant society. John Bowen, you've been opposed to the motion. Let's have your final remarks for our audience.

I think that in our very fruitful discussion, which I've enjoyed completely with Carolyn, I think we've said a lot of the things that we wanted to say. So let me just say a couple of things briefly. The first is that the motion clearly, as it is stated, as it stands, is false. That it isn't the case that a secular society is a tolerant society. Just by knowing that there's something called secularism, we could attribute to a society, tells us nothing about how tolerant it's likely to be. So the motion is clearly wrong. But more interesting is our long discussion that we've had,

which is how should we think normatively about the particular arrangements that we find in each of many, many countries to balance out the proper role of government and the proper role of religious people, religious organizations, and those who are not. And how do we engineer things, construct things, structure our societies, so that there's as much tolerance and respect

by all groups for all other groups, such that they're willing to accept, indeed, I would hope, eager to accept, living with people unlike them in a particular society. Now, part of that answer has been that, clearly, each country has its own traditions and they have to work within those traditions. And that's a very important lesson

because we cannot universalize from any one's country's experience. I brought up Indonesia earlier, but I think that could be used as a platform for talking about a broader question is, how do we work, given what, Carolyn just eloquently pointed to, which is the global nature of dialogue and discourse and publication involving different religious and non-religious groups. How do we deal with that?

It sounds terribly distressing that things are that way, and indeed in many ways they are, but maybe a better way to deal with that than to say, here we stand, we're not going to change anything we do, which I can certainly understand as an important expression of principle is to think about new ways that different groups can work with each other across religious divides or religious and political divides to come up with better solutions for promoting tolerance and promoting respect, which I think I would argue that's the end goal here, is how do we best promote tolerance and respect within each society. Thank you, John. And Carolyn, we're going to give you the last word in our excellent debate today, be it resolved, a secular society

is a tolerant society. Carolyn, wrap this debate up for us. First, thank you so much for letting us having this debate politely and a changing argument in a global world where it is becoming more and more difficult to have different views

and still politely discuss. I think the best way to promote tolerance in this global and polarized world is by starting to respect the pluralism of ideas. ideas, philosophy and context. When something offends me, before reacting too harshly, maybe, we should try to understand where it comes from and the exact context of a cartoons, a play, a piece of art, a sentence. And then we also should admit that sometimes we do not all

strive to reach our goals in the same context. And that's good. I mean, I mean, we are living in different societies, and this is for a reason. And sometimes we have common challenges. Definitely, I think we can all agree that it's part of the universal human right declaration that everyone deserve equality, deserve respect. But to guarantee that, there is sometimes different ways regarding who is pushing in front of it to break that equality. Again, if you're living a society where white supremacists are promoting hate again, religious people, minority religious,

and probably the best way to contain it is to definitely tackle this ideology, confront it and do something about it. Where you're living in a society where definitely radical Islamism is promoting sexism. homophobia and every single day try to kill or threat to kill a freethinker, a young, lesbian or a cartoonist, you definitely need to do something about it. And the solution cannot be only to be quiet and shut up because then the violent one, the intolerant one, is winning. He's winning. So the best way to promote tolerance is not to tolerate the intolerant. the best way is to politely, quietly, with patience and rationality explain why you believe still in equality, free thinking, secularism,

and you will defend it. You will defend it. But again, there is a big, big difference between promoting a common value that respects all of us and imposing a very specific way to think. things in details. What we try to preserve, which we should all try to preserve, is a common area where we can exchange ideas that provoke us, that sometimes offend us, including about religion, but there is a limit. The limit is to incite to hatred against person regarding their religion, their origin, their sexual orientation, their gender. This is the limit between free speech and hate speech, I believe in this limit. But,

we all need to continue to exchange and argue and stay informed in details to be precisely sure that sometimes we have to respect free speech, sometimes we have to resist to a speech. It's part of the global challenges of today and nobody can think that, again, claiming to be tolerant will be enough. We have to defend again those values of freedom and equality against the intolerance. Thank you, Carolyn. Thank you, John. This is, you know, a lot of topics out there. This is one of the more controversial and often, frankly, incoherent features of public debate and discussion. But both of you have brought remarkable civility, grace, insight, and analysis to this conversation today. So on behalf of the Monk Debates community, thank you so much for being part of this important conversation. Thanks to you. Thank you. Thank you. We really enjoyed it. Well, that wraps up today's debate.

I want to thank our participants, Carolyn and John, for a terrific conversation on a really important and contentious issue. I certainly learned a lot. I hope you did too. Please send us your feedback and reflections on what you've just heard. You can do that by sending an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. And a friendly reminder that our members-only podcast. is yours free to listen to any time as a perk of our basic membership,

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